Snow Is Falling
by Silver Winged Duck
Summary: A rookie soldier, Hawkbit Tarbuck, is assigned to the elite Squad 501 from District 13 tasked with assaulting a Peacekeeper position in District 9 during the rebellion. Can she survive the horrors of the battlefield? Or will she become another victim of the violent revolution?


For over an hour, the rain had lashed down from dark, unwelcoming heavens. To be dry was now just a hopeless desire for rebel fighters and Capitol Peacekeepers alike, adding to the struggle to push the other side from the centre of District Nine. Even the frogs and slugs had left the open to find refuge from the downpour.

A young woman trudged through the hellish downpour, and the destruction that was once the main hub of District Nine. Around her, the presence of the battle fought was all too obvious to ignore, no longer could a man walk in a straight line up the centre of the main street unless he planned to clamber over the tattered remains of Peacekeeper barricades, some still with their defenders lying with red and brown streaking their white uniform. Every building had a pile of it's rubble and broken glass at it's doorstep, one even had the tail of a Rebellion hovercraft embedded in it's midriff, the flames still flickering inside. The Rebellion had to fight for every inch of the District liberated, and the Peacekeepers would not give up anything without a fight.

Every step brought her closer to the not-so-distant gunfire and explosions. The exceptionally heavy shelling would send tremors through the earth and she'd feel the nearby buildings vibrate.

"Excuse me?" The girl, barely out of her teenage years and half drowned by the torrential storm was barely audible over the constant drone of the water as she approached the nearest huddle of men. Her black uniform signified her allegiance to the Rebellion, the clean cloth and unmarked assault rifle drenched. "Where can I find Squad Five Zero One?"

The weary respondent looked down at her for a moment, eyes seeming to examine the figure in front of him trying in vain to hide from the rain under glistening waterproofs. He turned to address another man next to him, a blond-haired hotshot with blue eyes as icy as the water that hammered the District. "One for you, Polanski." He murmured, voice as tired as the man looked. "Probably to replace the lad you lost."

Polanski's gaze moved from the well-built soldier to the woman in question. He patted the man on the shoulder in farewell and stepped from under cover into the street. The water had turned the roads into streams of mud, splashing brown up the boot of the soldier as he stepped into the open. He stood nearly six foot tall, the girl came up to the shoulders of the man, and the uniform that was baggy on her was tight around his muscular build. His breath fogged around his head like a veil of smoke, and where the uniform had torn to reveal skin, it was purple in the cold that had grasped the District in its claws. He spoke with a southern drawl, typical of many from District Ten. "So you must be Tarbuck?"

She shivered as she nodded. It was an instinctive response, and Polanski noticed. He nodded his head in the direction of a bombed-out building, even in the dark and rain the ugly grey stone was visible, typical of all of Nine's District Centre buildings. A mortar shell had hit the middle, all above the impact zone had crumbled and left a shell underneath, covered from the rain as instantly noticed by the girl. "The Five Oh First are in there. I'll take you to them." With that, he turned and walked through the waterlogged stream the road had become. Quickly she followed, working hard to keep up with the man's long strides.

"What's your name, Soldier?"

"Tarbuck?" She didn't know how to answer, the man already knew his name didn't he?

Apparently that wasn't the answer Polanski was looking for. He stopped suddenly and turned to look down at her again. "Your full name, Soldier. I already know your surname."

"I… I was not aware that my first name was important." Fumbling for the words. She desperately wanted to impress on her first day out of basic training yet somehow she was unable to answer the basic question.

Polanski sighed as water dripped from his face. Placing a firm but gentle hand upon her shoulder, he knelt to her height and gestured with gloved hands to the groups of men around the small clearing. "What did they teach you about squads in basic training?"

"A squad is a fighting unit of five or more soldiers, usually commanded by a Sergeant. A group of three squads is known as a Platoon and is led by a Lieutenant." Reciting the words written down in her notebook, copied directly from her teachings. Words that would impress the instructors, but Polanski shook his head slowly and wiped his forehead.

"Look around you. These men and women are far from home. They are cold, wet, tired and many injured. A squad soon becomes more than a fighting unit. It becomes a family. To some of these rebels, it's the only family they have." He removed his hand and stood a pace back. "So what's your name, Soldier?"

"Hawkbit, sir."

Polanski smiled, albeit only slightly. "I'm no 'sir', I work for a living. You can call me Corporal. Ramauri when we're not fighting." With that, he turned back to where the Five Oh First were positioned. With a wave of his hand, he gestured for Hawkbit to follow. "So what brought you here to the fine army of District Thirteen, Hawkbit?"

Tarbuck licked her lips, tasting the rainwater that soaked them. "I have my own reasons to hate the Capitol, and President Snow." The shorter soldier answered carefully, selecting each word.

Her heavy heartbeat calmed as Polanski simply nodded in acceptance of her answer. "As we all do." Stepping over the rubble, he entered the dark but dry remains of the ground floor. Inside the only light came from three stove fires, golden flickers of light choreographed shadows that danced and twirled across walls and pillars. Dust and bullet holes riddled the place, and her nose was assaulted by the smell of sweat and tomato soup.

The Corporal pointed to the first stove, and the man stirring the thick orangey red liquid. "This is Soldier Marcus Dale. Five Oh One's wrench wench. He's from District Three, if there's anything you need fixing or blowing up, Dale's your guy." Rough skinned and bearded, Dale looked up at Tarbuck and nodded simply in greeting. He reached out with a hand, the creases stained black and Tarbuck felt the power of the man in the handshake.

"Next, we have Soldier Orion Pokitaru." The next man sat next to a large and heavy machine gun, and he had arms as thick as tree trunks. It was no surprise when she was told he was from Seven. "Used to carry twice the amount of wood as any other. Not one for affection, but there's no other man I'd rather have in a firefight." As expected after his introduction, Pokitaru largely ignored the pair, only once glancing up with emerald eyes set into dark skin.

Two more men entered, one average heighted with black hair shaved short back and sides and the other easily the tallest man out of the squad. "That's Sergeant Colard Wildfeather, the tall bald one. Was once a Peacekeeper in Two until he escaped and managed to get to Thirteen. Don't piss him off, whatever you do."

"Who's next to him?" Tarbuck spoke quietly. It felt rude to talk normally in such the quiet setting, where the bubble of boiling food was audible.

"Soldier Indigo Richu. Communications Officer from District Three. Complete electrical genius. He and Dale are barely seen apart, except when Sarge needs orders from Thirteen." As predicted, Richu rejoined his partner.

"Ladies, your attention please." Wildfeather's voice easily filled the room, a deep call that demanded all to listen to it. Every head ignored the current task at hand to turn and watch, and intently take in his word. "Before I get to our next orders, I need to introduce our newest member. Soldier Hawkbit Tarbuck will be our new sharpshooter after Tommie bit the dust. May the odds be in her favour and ours too."

The last line was murmured by all, and Tarbuck quickly lowered her eyes and did the same least she offend any one of the battle-hardened soldiers. "I'll say the same to you, Tarbuck, as I said to every one of my men." Wildfeather continued, his eyes focussed solely on the dripping girl at the centre of his squad. "I will not ask you to do something I haven't done myself. Hesitation means death. It's kill or be killed out there, and you're no use to the Rebellion dead." All of this was spoken calmly, but with a forceful edge. "These men of the Five Oh First are your brothers now, and I expect you to treat them that way. Do so, and you'll be treated like theirs."

Tarbuck felt a warmth flow through her, beginning at her pale cheeks and twirling like ribbons down her spine, and making her grow a few inches. Polanski must have noticed, because he grinned and patted her on the shoulder. Reaching up, she pulled the hood of her waterproofs off, letting dark auburn hair fall freely down her back.

Wildfeather changed the focus of his address to the whole squad. "The Five Oh First and Thirty Second squads have been tasked with the assault and capture of the District train station." He looked to Richu who placed a small black box in the centre. A small 3D hologram map of District Nine flickered to life, the blue light bouncing across the walls and lighting the ruin with an eerie glow. The whole squad gathered round, Tarbuck noted that they all wore the same black uniform unlike many of the other Rebels who were forced to wear whatever clothes they could lay their hands on. The uniform, in contrast to hers, were as rugged and battered as the men who wore them.

"We will head to the front line, and handrail just behind it." Using a thin stick produced from his pack, Wildfeather drew an invisible line from their position on the map, marked by a green circle, down the street and to the jagged red line that cut the district in half. The stick followed the edge of the red line, until it reached the station. "The Thirty Second will lead and hold position just outside while we will assault and capture the station. Hawkbit…"

Tarbuck straightened and looked intently at the hologram as her name was mentioned. "...will position herself up here, this should give you a clear line of sight of the station to do your overwatch from." Wildfeather paused, allowing time for his words to dissolve into the minds of every soldier. "Questions?"

It was Pokitaru who went first. "What resistance should we expect?" The heavy weapons expert asked, his voice one gruff and deep to match his figure. Hawkbit noticed the machine gun had never left his side, and was cleaned to perfection unlike the rest of his kit.

Wildfeather's features soured, and soon the new squad sharpshooter understood why. "Reconnaissance missions have been very ineffective. We don't know what we're dealing with." a collective groan arose from the unit, and Wildfeather nodded in agreement. "All I can say is, expect a lot of armed assholes. Standard Captiol defences. Armed vehicles, land mines, ambushes etcetera. Luckily the fantastic weather we have means no hovercraft support." Pokitaru seemed satisfied with the answer, nodding and continued to stare at the translucent blue map. You could almost see the cogs turning in his brain as the man evaluated, plotted and planned.

"We'll leave in ten minutes." Wildfeather broke the silence after nobody spoke. He stood to his full height, reaching over to close the map and shut off the strangely beautiful glow. Hawkbit blinked, seeing the glow flash with every flutter until eventually her eyesight returned to normal. Her night-vision would take a little longer to regenerate, to beat back the shadows that had grown to cloud her senses. "Pack up and be ready to move. You too Tarbuck! Standing around aimlessly won't win the war."

Embarrassed, the new recruit noticed she was the last one standing around where the map had disappeared. Everyone had left to hastily finish their meals and pack up their gear. So not wanting to be the centre of Wildfeather's attention, she quickly found herself a spot to sit down. Carefully placing her rifle beside her, she held her sopping wet bag between equally drenched boots and loosened the straps, pulling the bag open.

Thanks to waterproof liners, the contents inside were dry. There was one particular dry-bag that Tarbuck was interested in, and she cautiously extracted it from the others. It felt heavier than the rest, and she slowly set it down next to her rifle with the slightest of metallic clinks. Unclipping the top, she set out the various gadgets out on the cold concrete floor that was slowly sapping the feeling from her thighs.

Shifting herself and crouching next to the ledge she had previously sat upon, the sharpshooter assembled her companion. The assault rifle was slowly transformed with bipods, silencers and a telescopic scope from a close range infantry fighting weapon to a precision tool. With instinctive gentleness and an eye that could spot the tiniest spot of dirt on a brown cloth, she examined the rifle from muzzle to butt plate. Every little bolt, every catch and every mechanism was tested, and retested. It was a habit hammered into her at the start and end of every marksmanship training session, until checking over the rifle became something she could do asleep.

* * *

The ten minutes passed quickly and quietly, the rain had finally paused to give the District time to gather its senses after the merciless pounding. The light outside had not improved, and stepping out from the murky cave, Tarbuck's eyes had no trouble quickly adjusting to the new surrounding. The biting wind suddenly caught her in its grasp, and her damp jacket did nothing to keep the heat from escaping and taking the last strands of comfort with it.

Squad Three Two was already there, and Tarbuck was getting used to assessing the age of the squad by the wear and tear in the uniform they wore. The Thirty Second had seen action no doubt, and the greeting between Wildfeather and their Sergeant was like a reunion of old school friends. Warm and full of understanding. From her position further back in the squad, atop a small pile of rubble, snippets of their words were whispered into her ear by the chilling gust. Small praise. Comments about the operation. A bet. Nothing special that caught her attention.

Then Wildfeather turned to his squad and gave the signal they were waiting for. A wave of a hand that began the operation to take the station. As the Thirty Second fanned out ahead to clear any remaining resistance that somehow survived the merciless push through the street days earlier, the Five Oh First formed two files on either side of the street and followed. Although it was far from a simple walk. The two hundred or so meters of walking to the front line was littered with rubble and the rebels had to constantly navigate round the piles of building, burned out vehicles and craters. The job was tougher for the men and women in the Thirty Second, Tarbuck constantly saw them swarming over rubble and down craters like soldier ants hunting for prey, checking for Peacekeepers that might be lurking and waiting for them. But their rifles remained silent, no Capitol ambush was thwarted.

As they neared the fighting, Tarbuck could soon hear the thunder see the flashes. Fire was left to rage unhindered, consuming everything it could get at. The once grey but lively market street was a wasteland, devoid of life.

"Welcome to the front line, Rookie." Rookie was Tarbuck's assigned call sign for the squad radios. It was only temporary, until she was deemed worthy of a new one. "Keep your head low and don't attract attention. It makes you very unpopular when bullets start heading our way."

"Keep your eyes up for snipers. Watch those fuck'n rooftops." Wildfeather gestured to his eyes and pointed upwards. The veteran sergeant had had one too many men picked off by hidden guns, and he communicated his orders back down the line with simple hand gestures. With a nod the squad's leader didn't see, Tarbuck began to play a deadly game of hide and seek.

 _So where would I hide?_

That was the question she asked herself over and over as every window and every roof was examined in turn. With every ' _there_ ' answer, the rifle was brought up and the spot examined more closely. Every single time, there was nothing to see. Despite the heavy pounding of gunfire nearby, and the vibrations of heavy weapons shuddering through her boots, she still could hear her heartbeat pound like a steady bass drum in her ears. Tarbuck brought the rifle down in time to see four of the Thirty Second Squad's soldiers swarm over a crater.

Then all Tarbuck could hear was a high-pitched ringing in her ears and she was lying on her back. Why was she lying down? Why could she not hear, yet seconds ago the artillery was competing with the rhythmic beat of her heart for the attention of her eardrums? Why did everything which was once dull and grey now seem so bright? And why did time seem to drag its heels?

One by one her senses returned. First, she felt cold and wetness seep through her back and into her muscles. A shiver went down her spine as she struggled to push herself up. The young soldier's vision returned, in time to see the remaining two members of the Thirty Second jerk and twist like performing a strange dance routine before falling still in the mud. Time sped up, as some unseen force kicked up splashes of water and brown sludge in a trail that snaked closer and closer, and her hearing snapped back in time to hear the familiar rattle of an assault rifle.

Scrambling back, the bullets cut a path through where she had once lay. Pain rocked her body, her back whimpered and her elbows felt like someone had dragged sandpaper over them. She was already soaking wet to the bone, so she had no qualms about rolling through a icy puddle into cover. The dead hulk of Hovercraft wing served to halt the stream of metal that rained down towards her, rattling like pennies in a tin can. The sound of battle.

Out of a door opposite her, two white-clad men burst out. Their rifles sang and the last soldier of the doomed Thirty Second collapsed into a pool of water, mud and his own blood. Scrambling to ready her weapon, somehow still slung to her shoulder, she brought it up at the Peacekeepers and steadied the crosshairs over the chest of the closer enemy, fifty meters from her.

Squeezing the trigger, the weapon remained silent.

 _Shit..._

Stoppage drills. Tarbuck glanced at the side of her rifle, the cocking handle was fully forward. Slamming it forward with her palm, she once more took aim at the soldiers who had by now noticed her. But still, her weapon refused to fire.

 _Oh shit…_

Frantically ramming the trigger back and forward, Tarbuck violently shook the rifle. Her eyes were wider than a dinner plate and she'd forgotten how to breathe. Looking back up, she saw the Peacekeeper weapons train on her position.

 _Ohshitohshitohshitohshit…._

She squeezed her eyes shut and shrieked as gunfire echoed in her head. But she felt no pain. Upon opening her eyes, Tarbuck found the Peacekeepers dead, red staining the white uniform and Polanski standing over her, rifle shouldered and vapourised gas streaming from the muzzle of the weapon, as if the rifle were smoking a cigarette. There was silence...well...apart from the noise of the front line. A whole five seconds passed, which to Tarbuck felt like five minutes, before any of the rebels moved from their cover.

"Everyone report in." Wildfeather ordered gruffly and demanding instant attention, his voice directed straight into her ear by Tarbuck's headset.

"Polanski here."

"Dale, here."

"Richu, reporting in."

"Pokitaru, here."

Tarbuck thumbed the comlink. "T...Tarbuck...here...". She was pulled up from her sitting position to her feet by Polanski, who crouched down so his calm eyes were level with her frightened ones.

"You still alive, Rookie?" A stupid question it seemed, but the young soldier nodded anyway. She realised how stupid she must have looked, cowering like a terrified rabbit caught in the headlights while the Five Oh First expertly dealt with the attack like a training exercise. Polanski read her mind, and placed a reassuring hand upon her shoulder. "You survived, that's all that matters. We need you." He spoke softly, words that brought warmth to the shivering girl. The second-in-command smiled and stood.

Six hooded figures clad in black were all that remained of the strike team. The analysis that came from Wildfeather spoke of an ambush that wiped out the Thirty Second in under a minute and nearly overran the Five Oh First, but Tarbuck focused her attention on the malfunctioning rifle. Her first step was to check the safety, and her heart dropped like a stone as she reached for the switch on the side of the weapon. She looked over her shoulder at her squad mates collecting ammunition and equipment from the fallen Thirty Second Squad and muffled the _click_ the safety catch made.

"Rookie, if you're finished playing with your rifle I'd like to assault a train station." Wildfeather's no-nonsense tone of voice called for a swift response. Tarbuck snapped to action and stood up, moving over to rejoin the group knelt in an all-round defence circling the veteran soldier. "Okay. So we've lost the Thirty Second. As much as I want to leave them with a burial and nice words, if we don't hit the station we'll lose the District in forty eight hours." His words were cold but there was sense in what he said. The District was vital to the Rebellion, should they lose it they would lose the momentum they'd built up. "So it looks like we'll provide our own forward cover. Pokitaru, you're up front and Tarbuck can cover our asses. Let's get moving, it's not far to the target."

With no hint of reluctance, the squad stood and arranged themselves into their staggered formation. Everybody was on full alert now, rifles were glued to the shoulders of the soldiers and heads were swivelling left and right in search of hidden enemies that didn't challenge them. Even with the large light-support-weapon, Pokitaru moved with grace and agility to bypass obstacles in his path. While the rain didn't return, a slight drizzle served to remind the men and women of the dark skies that haunted the District.

Eventually, Pokitaru dropped to a knee and signalled for Wildfeather to advance to him. The squad leader moved over while everyone else knelt behind cover and trained their rifles to eye up all possible areas they were open to attack from. It was only now, knelt down behind what used to be a stone wall, that Tarbuck realised how cold she was. It was as if all the heat had vented out into space, replaced by a cold numbness that gripped her body in iron dripped from her hair into her eyes, but there was nothing dry to use to wipe the water and sweat away.

Then Wildfeather returned to the centre of the all-round defence. "This is it." He murmured. Murmuring was in actual fact, quieter than whispering. It was less likely to be picked up by nearby eavesdroppers. "Rookie, get your ass up in that building sharp-ish, give us a call when you're there."

Tarbuck nodded in between shivering and scrambled to her feet. She felt the rest of the squad behind her train their weapons in all directions, looking out for a flash of white. But the sniper reached the wall without incident. She glanced over at the squad ducked behind cover, and noticed a slight nod from Polanski before she entered the building with her rifle shouldered.

The first room was clear, and Tarbuck breathed a quiet sigh of relief to be out of the harsh weather. Quickly but cautiously, she moved through the first floor with no sign of Peacekeeper activity. Apart from the occasional whistle of wind, it was eerily silent. The interior of the building would need a lot of refurbishment after the war however, it was hard to tell what the previous use for it was. Thoughts were ejected from her head as she found the stairway. Weapon ready and after double checking the safety was off, she moved swiftly upwards. The second floor was as quiet as the first, and also was the third.

"How are we doing, Rookie?" Her radio earpiece crackled. Tarbuck thumbed the push-to-talk button clipped to her chest and replied in a murmur.

"On the fourth floor. The first three floors are clear."

"I didn't ask you to clear the whole damn place. Get to a vantage point get me eyes on the station." Wildfeather didn't sound amused, and Tarbuck swallowed anxiously.

"Roger that."

The fourth, fifth and sixth floors were traversed more rapidly. She still made a point of making sure there were no enemies hiding in the doors but stealth was largely ignored for now. It took her less than half the time she took to clear the first three floors to get from the fourth floor to the eighth floor, and finally in a position to oversee the station. The room she had chosen was average-sized, housing what remained of a bed along one wall and various tattered furniture strewn wherever. Like the rest of the District, it was old, battered and run down.

"In position." Tarbuck notified her unit commander. Through her scope, she counted the figures below. "I have eyes on...nine foot mobiles and no technicals." Military talk for nine Peacekeepers on foot with no vehicles. Her view was limited to the open space. The platform was a long ugly stretch of grey concrete the length of a standard train covered by a rusted iron roof. Around the platforms was a wide compound littered with debris, at least thirty meters from the nearest building to the platforms themselves. From where Tarbuck stood, she couldn't see anything under the corrugated iron roof. "I can't see under the roof, there may be more."

"Understood. Can you see any officers?"

Peacekeeper officers were very difficult to spot. Having no distinguishing markings on their uniform, the only way to effectively spot an officer was to watch the actions of the other Peacekeepers around them, which took time the young sniper couldn't afford. The crosshairs moved from one white-clad soldier to the next, the woman assessing the actions of each one individually. The soldiers seemed to be preparing for the arrival of something, supplies or reinforcements.

"Can you see any officers?" The question was repeated with more force behind it.

"Negative." Then she saw one man point and another run in the direction gestured to him and out of sight. "Hold on, I have one possible officer or NCO."

"Then you're clear to engage."

This was it. To Tarbuck, it was more than the beginning of an engagement. This was her first kill, her first shot outside of training. It wasn't a difficult shot, no more challenging than anything she'd undertaken in training but she felt her hands begin to clam up and her breathing grew heavy. The sniper forced herself to calm, a deep breath in for five seconds and out for five. In and out again, at which point the rifle came up again. In for five and out.

As she exhaled, the crosshairs steadied. It was a common error for snipers to hold their breath in when aiming, at which point the body shakes as it searches for more oxygen. The most stable time to shoot was just after an exhale in between breaths, and Tarbuck slowly squeezed on the trigger.

There was recoil, the sights juddered but there was no sound except the metallic clunk of the weapon's moving parts. There was no glass to pass through, the round flew straight and true. Tarbuck knew of the weak points in Peacekeeper armour and had aimed for where the chestplate ended, below the helmet. The round would penetrate the armour without issue, but in order to cause as much damage to the officer as possible she had aimed for the weak point.

The target stumbled back with the hit, dropping the F2000 assault rifle he held and clutching at his neck while falling to the floor. He squirmed and writhed as blood mixed with water. Two more Peacekeepers swarmed to his side but first aid was futile at this point as the officer coughed, his life slipping away. The rifle Tarbuck used was semi-automatic, and was able to squeeze away a second shot and caught the medic in the back of the neck, another perfect shot.

Then all hell broke loose below as the Five Oh First entered the fray. The heavy rattle of burst fire from Pokitaru's light machine gun overruled the shouting from the Capitol soldiers and scattered them like flies, they all ducked into some form of cover and left the two dying men in the open. There was no return fire for a few precious seconds as the four remaining black-clad soldiers charged forward. Pokitaru was nowhere to be seen by Tarbuck, he must be somewhere below her to provide suppressing fire.

"Don't you stop shooting, Rookie!" Someone shouted, it sounded like Wildfeather. She looked and they were right out in the open, only the thunderous crackling from Pokitaru kept the enemy soldiers cowering behind cover. Hurriedly, Tarbuck took aim again at a soldier cowering behind the burnt-out remains of a jeep, a single shot and his body jerked violently as his armour did nothing to stop the round.

Her heart stopped in her chest when from the hallway she heard footsteps. She brought the rifle round and dropped to a knee as the figure entered the doorway, The radio was alive with the sound of battle but it fell on Tarbuck's deaf ears as the Peacekeeper rounded the corner and halted with surprise. His weapon was hanging from a strap and his sidearm stashed away.

There was a small pause that felt like a lifetime. Rebel and Peacekeeper stared at each other before the white-clad man reacted first to dart forwards and slap the muzzle of her rifle away with the back of his hand. Tarbuck fired milliseconds too late and the bullet buried itself in the ceiling, showering them both with plaster. Her senses exploded with pain as an armoured fist slammed into her face. She dropped the weapon instinctively and fell backwards.

The Peacekeeper went for his rifle, fumbling with the strap but Tarbuck was quicker. Taking advantage of the man's frantic scrambling, she jumped into a crouch and rugby tackled the soldier to the floor, the F2000 assault rifle clattering away. But the essence of surprise was gone and the sniper was quickly tossed aside.

Tarbuck rolled to her feet but the white-clad soldier followed closely and swung for her. It was a predictable move and the woman ducked under the swing, counterattacking with two swift punches to his abdomen. Her knuckles cracked against the armour but the man clearly felt the hit as he staggered back half a pace. Before she could press her advantage he charged forwards again and an elbow connected with the side of her head, sending her sprawling across what was once a chest of drawers and onto the floor.

She tasted blood in her mouth, a warm metallic ooze from somewhere. Tarbuck was aware of a ringing in her ear as she tried to push herself up but there was an almighty kick to her chest. Her breasts burned painfully as she gasped, the air knocked from her lungs. She rolled onto her back, gasping deeply for air but the soldier placed a heavy knee upon her windpipe.

 _I can't die like this._ Frantically, Tarbuck's hands clawed at the knee and thigh but to no avail. Almost in slow motion, she saw the man's hand move up to his hip, where the holster to his sidearm was kept. Her vision was blurring, and her lungs burned with the desperate plea for air. A fleeting thought came to mind, and her clumsy hand moved down as her leg came up. In the sniper's boot, was a small fighting bowie knife.

The Peacekeeper's pistol was out of the holster and his second hand moved up to chamber the first round. But he instead screamed as the knife was plunged deep into his unprotected groin. Tarbuck twisted the knife and the Peacekeeper flailed in absolute agony. Importantly, he fell back and off the young rebel's neck. She wheezed for breath, rolling on her side and grabbing up the dropped pistol as the Peacekeeper moaned in pain. Now on her back once more, she chambered the first round herself and aimed, firing three times in rapid succession. The Peacekeeper jolted where he knelt, falling backwards and lying still.

Tarbuck held her position for a few more seconds before the pistol fell to the floor and she lay back, panting heavily. A gloved hand wiped her nose and came away bright red, the same hand brushed auburn hair from her face and pinched the bridge of her nose aside closed eyes. The ringing subsided gradually, as her breathing slowed to normal while the burning sensation faded. Tarbuck's jaw throbbed, but she was able to ignore the pain.

She suddenly lay very still. There was no more sound coming from outside, and her heart pounded once more. Rolling onto her front, she crawled to where her rifle lay and pushed herself to her feet. The radio push-to-talk button had disappeared from her jacket, there was no way to contact the squad that way. She failed to hold the scope still with shaking hands, but it was enough to count more dead Peacekeepers and no sign of the squad.

More footsteps came from the stairway. The sniper span quickly and pressed herself into a far corner, the rifle aimed in the general direction of the door. The noise was cautious, and paused at the top of the stairs. Then a familiar voice sang out. "You still alive, Rookie?"

Tarbuck wanted to cry out with relief but held her excitement back and lowered the muzzle of the weapon. "Yeah...I think." The figure of the non-commissioned-officer appeared in the doorway with his assault rifle in hand but pointed at the floor. His face was cool and serious, even more so when he spotted the body of the Peacekeeper and the battered form of the rookie.

"You're hurt." It was a statement, not a question. Tarbuck didn't deny it, her nose and jaw ached like hell while she would definitely sprout some impressive bruising. She waved off the efforts of Polanski to help her up from a kneeling position and picked up the pistol from the Peacekeeper. It got her a raised eye from the Corporal but the girl ignored him. This pistol saved her life, she wasn't one for believing in fate but it felt like the right thing to do. There was a grimace from both parties as she removed her knife from the body.

"Have we won?" Tarbuck questioned wearily.

"Far from it. The station is ours with no casualties but we still have a long way to go before the District is free." Polanski replied as he gestured for Tarbuck to exit the room and followed her out. The two soldiers made their way back out onto the street littered with the evidence of the battle before. Tarbuck had made it about four steps before Polanski clapped her on the shoulder.

"You did well today...Hawkeye."


End file.
